Pensacola Mountains


The Pensacola Mountains are a large group of mountain ranges of the Transantarctic Mountains System, located in the Queen Elizabeth Land region of Antarctica.

Geography

They extend 450 km in a NE-SW direction. Subranges of the Pensacola Mountains include: Argentina Range, Forrestal Range, Dufek Massif, Cordiner Peaks, Neptune Range, Patuxent Range, Rambo Nunataks and Pecora Escarpment. These mountain units lie astride the extensive Foundation Ice Stream and Support Force Glacier which drain northward to the Ronne Ice Shelf.
;Naming
Discovered and photographed on January 13, 1956 in the course of a transcontinental nonstop plane flight by personnel of US Navy Operation Deep Freeze I from McMurdo Sound to Weddell Sea and return. Named by US-ACAN for the U.S. Naval Air Station, Pensacola, Florida, in commemoration of the historic role of that establishment in training aviators of the U.S. Navy. The mountains were mapped in detail by USGS from surveys and US Navy air photos, 1956–67.

Geology

The Pensacola Mountains were originally continuous with the Ventana Mountains near Bahía Blanca in Argentina, Cape Fold Belt in South Africa, the Ellsworth Mountains and the Hunter-Bowen orogeny in eastern Australia.
The Ordovician-Devonian Neptune Group rests unconformably on a Cambrian succession, and is overlain disconformably by the Dover Sandstone of the Beacon Supergroup. Within the Neptune Group is the Brown Ridge Conglomerate, Elliott Sandstone, Elbow Formation, and the Heiser Sandstone.

Features

Geographical features include:

Neptune Range

Williams Hills

Schmidt Hills

Other features

Forrestal Range

Patuxent Range

Anderson Hills

Thomas Hills

Other features

Argentina Range

Schneider Hills

Panzarini Hills

Other features

Cordiner Peaks

Rambo Nunataks

Pecora Escarpment

Dufek Massif

Boyd Escarpment

Other features

Other Pensacola Mountains features